66 A New Threat in the Sand (2/2)

After living so long in the desert, not a single inhabitant was truly stupid, and the older scorpion soon realized what was the cause of the abnormal behavior of the other one. Looking left and right, he saw a small batch of stones nearby and immediately ran toward it. Normally, doing such a foolish action would only attract the giant birds lurking in the sky, awaiting an opportunity. Only the flesh creatures with strange limbs were capable of preventing that to happen.

Like the other, the monster soon felt the presence of a terrifying threat slowly turning around it, patiently waiting for an opening. Because it was on solid ground, it feared nothing about that unknown predator. In a frontal assault, nothing was able to bypass its mighty claws and even those fowls had to retreat in front of it. But the longer the scorpion waited with that increasing pressure, the more he realized that it was too dangerous.

One time, it was on the left, the next second it was behind it. All of its senses were sending mixed signals, perturbing, even more, the sturdy creature. Until finally, its adversary showed himself. ”Sssss” That small sound made the scorpion turned, to face a snake he never saw before. Maybe that snake was not very long, but he was abnormally large, and not thin like the rest. Seeing the maw wide open, the monster felt that it would only take two times for its entire body to be eaten.

”Do you undersssssstand me?” The same weird noises reverberated, but the scorpion heard nothing more but some threats. Its intelligence was not developed enough to understand that the flesh creatures were humans, and the strange limbs were not some real body parts. Making its claws smacking each other, it got in a real battle stance, prepared for anything.

Seeing this, Kardel internally sneered. The only reason why he hadn't killed it was to see if they were some sentient species, and not just some dumb monsters. But apparently, they were not. As for the previous chase, why prevent a duvodiad to feel the thrill of a hunt? At the same time, he truly needed some time to digest the previous scorpion, so, he had no choice but to wait a bit before eating the second one.

Facing the unwilling monster, he used the back of his body to have his head getting higher and higher, ready to pounce on the small creature. When his mouth was two times higher than the sting of the scorpion, his opponent was having a real hard time to move its body to see him. The vision of a creature like that was not made to truly see above it because its neck was too rigid. When the eyes of the arachnidan couldn't follow anymore his head, Kardel suddenly fell on top of the scorpion.

Using his two mandibles, he easily pierced the skull of the monster, killing him in an instant. After that, he leisurely took his time to eat everything carefully, still watching for the venomous tail. He was not certain how dangerous it was, and had no intention of testing. He was far away from any help, and to be poisoned for nothing would be a shame. After getting those two kills, he was feeling a lot better.

Pondering for a moment whether he should make a ritual to absorb the form of those scorpions, he denied the idea. They were far too weak, and he had already a few forms that could accomplish the same purpose. Looking toward the sky, he saw one of those giant things circling around him, but not approaching. He was a perfect target, in the open, on a rock, so to not attack him was weird. But now, it was too late to turn into anything else with a presence like that watching him.

Sliding into the hot sand once again, he kept searching for more living things. It was then that he met a group of humans that were walking slowly in the uneven terrain, visibly on their guard. Because he had flown without any real direction except that North-East was the Synnade Empire, Kardel had no idea where he was truly located. And he couldn't just extract information from their souls like Leilade or even seduce and controlling them like Meridiana.

So, he followed that group three meters under them, hearing a little of their conversations. It was mostly silent, only some warnings about a potential threat or talking to get some supplies, like food and water. Confronted at that situation, the duvodiad was slowly losing patience and wondering if he shouldn't just kill them all. Trying to think what Leilade wanted and would not make him killed by her when she finally recovered her powers, he was getting a headache. He was not trained to think about such a thing, only tasked to kill or hunt.

But that group of humans clearly knew what they were up to. They dodged nearly everything that prepared a trap, from scorpions to snake, from sandworms of half the size of Kardel to birds that were immediately repelled by some arrows the moment they began their descent. Only right before dusk did they had to face something quite unexpected.

Using the vibrations of the ground, the duvodiad couldn't help but feel that something was weird. He was getting the same thing that he received when he encountered a scorpion, but there were a lot of other things that weren't making any sense. Because he couldn't understand how the sand could move and be displaced without being stomped on, he got away from the group of humans and only let his head leave the ground.

From afar, he could see five or so sand silhouettes fighting a scorpion, with weapons comparable to the one that the humans had. However, their defensive equipment was clearly lacking, since it was only covering the chest of those sand people. Trying to remember a thing about the djinns and how they were behaving with the humans, it soon turned useless. Because even while they were fighting the monster, some djinns were already pointing their weapons against the foreigners.